I am now three weeks into my twenty-eighth year as a teacher. For one who, all those years ago, never expected to have a career in education (I had worked as a journalist up to that point), I am sometimes still surprised at the rejuvenating power of being around young people from day to day. Last year I began teaching middle-school English for the very first time, in part because I had been one of those high-school instructors who frequently grouse about kids arriving in ninth grade ill-prepared for the big leagues, as it were, and I saw this as my chance to do something about it.
I have collected no data to substantiate what I intend to say here. I can only offer expert testimony.
If you should hear a veteran teacher proclaim that students’ skills have declined overall in reading, writing, critical thinking, reasoning, problem-solving, and so on, do not doubt it; it is true. On the other hand, it is also true that every year I meet precocious youngsters who have an intuitive grasp of fairly complex ideas, who can talk and write well, and who in some cases have that gnawing hunger for more - tougher assignments, thicker books, loftier ideas. Still others of them are pleasant, hardworking optimists bent on success, who will find their own trails up the mountain eventually. What interest do they all seem to share? The answer is simple: stories.
At some time in their lives, people (most often family members) have told them good stories.
Stories within families, told to children at an early age, seem to contribute their emotional and intellectual growth in various ways. For example, the ninth grader who recounted to me her grandfather’s story about serving as a “tunnel rat” in the Cu Chi district of Vietnam showed advanced verbal skills, even if the tale was harrowing; she listened better than many other students in her class, and her writing was superb. The kid whose mother had been in an all-girl band and toured the country could talk about those vast western rock odysseys as though he had been there himself. Even less glamorous stories (“My grand-dad was a logger up in the north woods…” or ”My mom had a raccoon for a pet when she was a kid…”) also seem to have a significant connection to both students’ academic performances and their self-images. It is as if the student might say, This is me…or at least a piece of me. My story is part of someone else’s story. And if one is a part of someone else’s story, might he or she also be part of a really big story? This is me. My story is part of a greater one. My life has meaning and purpose because my story is integral.
In fact, research does show that family stories, even those that do not feature sunshine and lollipops, can significantly affect young learners. As Elaine Reese, a child development specialist, wrote for The Atlantic in December of 2013, “All families have stories to tell, regardless of their culture or their circumstances. Of course, not all of these stories are idyllic ones. Research shows that children and adolescents can learn a great deal from stories of life’s more difficult moments–as long as those stories are told in a way that is sensitive to the child’s level of understanding, and as long as something good is gleaned from the experience.”
I am not suggesting that teachers chuck out those lessons that require discipline and constant review, such as sentence structure and vocabulary acquisition. I do believe it is vital that they alsoinclude as many opportunities for stories - hearing them, telling them, reading them, and writing them - as possible. I can say from my own experience that the light that comes into a young person’s eyes when he or she suddenly realizes the power of a great story is as redeeming as anything I have encountered in my career as a teacher.